News

USI, Foxconn to supply Wi-Fi iPod?

By Charles Starrett ● Friday, April 13, 2007

According to a report from DigiTimes, Universal Scientific Industrial and Foxconn are both involved in the manufacturing of Wi-Fi iPods due to appear later this year. USI is said to be making the Wi-Fi modules, with Foxconn serving as the system assembler. “USI will begin shipments later in April, while Foxconn may do so in the third quarter,” the report states. Taiwan-based Foxconn has been contracted by Apple in the past to build products such as iPods, desktop Macs, and Airport Base Stations.

Comments

1

that sounds cool. What is the practicality of having wifi on the ipod? It just drains the battery and to me it really provides no benefit. maybe wireless downloading so I can be lazy and not plug in the cable. whopee! I’d rather see support for xvid / divx / avi files plus a 640 x 480 screen on the ipod. Maybe larger hard drives or 16 or 32GB flash drives. oh and a removable / rechargable battery.

Posted by Charles Starrett on April 13, 2007 at 1:37 PM (CDT)

1

Hey Trevor, I’m pretty sure the iPod screen IS 640 x 480.

Posted by Charles Starrett on April 13, 2007 at 3:22 PM (CDT)

1

urbanslaughter - try 320 x 240 - one quarter of 640 x 480. You buy 640 x 480 from iTunes, but it won’t play at that resolution on your iPod :).

Posted by Charles Starrett on April 13, 2007 at 3:54 PM (CDT)

1

An Apple TV in your hand!

Posted by Charles Starrett on April 13, 2007 at 8:15 PM (CDT)

1

Trevor,

You are right, and wrong. New 5th generation iPods (available fall of last year) have 640 X 480 screens. Not only have I purchased 640 X 480 stuff from iTunes for use with my 80 GB iPod, but I use Handbrake to rip DVDs to that resolution as well. It works well.

Unfortunately, if you have an older 5G, then you are stuck with 320 X 240, which really isn’t a problem with a screen that small. It does suck a bit on a full size computer screen, however. I wonder what the next generation will bring?

Posted by Charles Starrett on April 14, 2007 at 4:12 PM (CDT)

1

Trevor,

You are right about the screen resolution, and I am wrong.

Although the iPod will play back 640 X 480, it does so at 320 X 240. I assumed that, iPod had the higher resolution screen because it can accommodate those videos.